i never go anywhere without a camera. i drink to get drunk. comfortable with technology, but not a geek. write for the satisfaction, not the story. take people's advice, but careful of their opinions.

Monday, July 31, 2006

confessions of a strip club barman

It’s been awhile since I’ve worked at the strip club. About 4 or so weeks I think…

“Just when I think I’m out, they drag me back in”

I knew it was going to be an interesting night when the manager had only one barman rostered on, me, for the whole night. That’d be fine for a sat night normally, but tonight they had the Bledisloe Cup in town (Australia vs. New Zealand) and it was going to be massive.

I fell back into the groove pretty easily (y’know, riding a bike and all). The usual high profile pillars of the community started to trickle in and the girls were liberating money from them like the US in the Middle East.

As the night went on more and more people packed the club and everyone got a little messy. I’m all for messiness. I think that people go to bars to get drunk and as long as they’re enjoying themselves and not interfering with other people it’s fine. But some low-breed proletarian scum decided in a drunken haze that the private lap dance room out the back would be a suitable place for him to quietly relive himself in a dark corner.

It’s not like we don’t have toilets. It’s not like they’re hard to find. In fact, the room is next to the toilets. I wish the bouncer had slapped him around a bit before he was kicked out but you just can’t do that these days. A few years ago we could have taken him out the back and bruised some ribs, but these days we have to carefully escort him to the front door, call him a cab, escort him to said cab and then make sure he leaves the vicinity safely. Too bloody good for a pig like that if you ask me.

Anyways…. After that everyone from the football started to pour in and it got really loud and busy really fast. And to add to that, a bunch of staff and managers were in on their night off and they were drinking hard.

At one point a bloke came up to the bar demanding a free drink because one of the waitress had taken his unattended beer. He was about the 11th person that night to complain about that and I was sick of it, so thinking on my feet I rambled some bullshit that I’m still proud of:

“I apologise sir, but due to the recent spate of drink spiking in the valley area it’s house safety policy to dispose of drinks that have been left unattended for any period of time. You have to understand that if we have time to remove your drink without you seeing it then there is the opportunity for drink spiking to occur.”

I was a little unsure if he’d buy it, but the bouncer standing at the bar folded his arms and nodded. He bought it and I went back to the crown 9-deep that had formed while I was spinning bullshit.

I was by myself in the bar and things started to get a little hairy when I ran out of ice, then lemons / limes. That wasn’t so bad. I can still work without those, but I started getting a little flustered when I ran out of glasses, redbull, beers and all juices.

I’m not sure how I made it to the end of the night. The $165 in tips helped a lot to keep a smile on my face.